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Who Can Define Sin?

God is the Creator of all things. Stop for a minute and dwell on that. No really, meditate on the fact that before God began creating, nothing existed – no time…no space…nothing.

Then God began to create. And He set up laws and systems to keep that creation going, laws like gravity and motion, the speed of light, and the movement of the universe. These are all things that come from the mind of God. And it is all good. How do we know this? He said so.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. – Gen 1:31

So if He set it all up, doesn’t it stand to reason that He is the only one who can define sin – that which is ‘not good’? How does He do this? He gives us His Torah.

When you delve into the Torah of God, you see that it is full of righteousness and truth, grace and mercy. Yet, so many times we misunderstand Paul and call it bad? We say it’s something we can’t do?

Yes, we have all sinned and fall short of the perfection of God. But does that mean that we throw out the Torah? That makes about as much sense as saying we can’t keep to speed limits so let’s get rid of them. Or, we can’t always stop at traffic lights, so they are useless and bad. Let’s get rid of them as well.

Silly, right? But that’s exactly what we do when we say God never intended for us to follow His Torah. And if we remember that Jesus is the Living Word, the Living Torah, then are we not supposed to follow Him?

No, rather we should agree that God is not a liar, and that everything He created is good, including the Torah. And if God said, “This commandment I am giving you today is not too difficult for you…it is in your mouth and in your mind so that you can do it.” than I think we should believe Him. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not all the time, but it is the mark we should strive to reach, the goal that is set before us.

So, if Torah is righteous and good, filled with grace and mercy, what is sin? “Sin is lawlessness” or put another way, “Sin is Torah-lessness.” (1 John 3:4)

It is only God, Maker-of-All-Things, perfect in every way who can define sin. It is only He who can say ‘this is right’ and ‘that is wrong’. After all, He is the Author of everything we see. As Author, His rules apply; His laws keep things going everywhere in this creation of His.